Szatmári Gizella: Signs of Remembrance - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2005)

to 1912, and then from 1921 to 1934. He also directed the Aquincum Museum, which was officially the Archaeological Department of the Capital City Museum, until 1937. Set between relief-portraits of his predecessor Károly Torma, and his disciple Lajos Nagy, the archaeologist who was appointed to his position here in 1922, the memorial slab of Bálint Kuzsinszky pays homage to his selfless local patriotism coupled with immense knowledge, expertise and dedication.

The Painter of Kalevala: Gallen

In 1905, Béla Vikár, the Hungarian translator of Kalevala, got in touch with Gal- len-Kallela, the well-known painter. Vikár’s purpose was to ask, or inspire, the master to illustrate his nation's heroic epic. The name of the Finnish painter and graphic artist was not unknown in this country. Hungarian artists had had their first chance to meet him at the Paris World Fair in 1900 where his frescos decorating his country’s pavilion featured scenes taken precisely from Kalevala.

Our "painter-relative" began to use his hyphenated name in the 1890s. According to some sources it was his father who had really changed his name by giving up the ancient Finnish Kallela for the Swedish Gallen, but the artist returned to the original to emphasise his ethnic roots.

At the Budapest international fine arts exhibition of 1906, Finland,was represented by sixty-four works made by its leading masters, seventeen among them by Gallen alone. These included his portrait of Maxim Gorky ("which is full of life and expressiveness,” commented one of his critics, Bernát Alexander). During his emigration, the great Russian writer crossed Finland, where he hid in the house of the renowned architect Eliel Saarinen. ("There is an architect by the name of Saarinen here... he's a real genius," he wrote to his wife. "His house is a miracle of beauty and his style is perfectly original — quite fairytale like. Akseli Gallen is a great artist, too, and you can say that this small country is a land of great men.”) Gallen-Kallela’s portrait of Gorky, as well as his oil canvas The young Faun, was purchased by the state and they are kept in the Museum of Fine Arts. His painting The Defence of the Sampo was awarded the State Grand Medal. Thai, was where his life-long friendship with Hungary and Hungarian artists and government art-administrators began.

Gallen came to Hungary on three occasions, spending almost half a year here during one of these visits. He lodged with József Fischer and his family in

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